personal blog from fALk v010

Internet Censorship in Germany

As a matter of silent protest I post hereby the alternative STOPP sign to protest against the censorship of the german internet by Germanys four biggest providers, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone/Arcor, Hansenet/Alice, Telefonica/O2 and Kabel Deutschland. I will also cancel my contract with Vodaphone/Arcor at the next possible date. I detest the idea that 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of East German governmental suppression this country is going along the same path again and there seems to be no big public outcry - especially since the involved politicians are susceptible of misusing such tools to push their own personal religious right-wing agenda.
For all german internet users there is now a free open DNS server run by foebud.org without censorship which can be reached under: 85.214.73.63 (thanks @murdelta)

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Hey everyone,
you may knowing, that there is an online petition going on in Germany against this law.
I just want to point out (or try to with my bad English) that EVERYONE in the whole world is allowed to support this petition, because german constitution grands everyone to write petitions to the german parliament (or any other public institution of germany). This right has the totality of a human right in germany (some might say, because we are a nation of complainers ;-)) - Even childern, foreigner ... may. Everyone means everyone.
If you can read German, in this thread of the discussion site of the online-petition, you can read exactly the laws that grand you these rights:

https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?topic=1564.0

(starts with a discussion to fill out the registration correctly - later that foreigners are allowed to sign the petition also)

So - why should foreigners sign a petition - THIS petetion - in germany:

1.) Even if you are a visitor in Germany, you have the right (again granted by german constitution) to get information by every (legal) public source you like - without censoring. Of course child porn illegal. But the mechanisms to block this content can easily exended to every content - and there are no general control mechanisms - the BKA (german FBI) decides by itself which sites should be blocked - the perfect mechanism for censoring.

2.) If you are in germany, and let’s say, go to an internet cáfe or use the connection of your hotel - and you reach a blocked website with bad luck, your IP is stored by the BKA. And the BKA has then officially thinks you are searching for cild porn - and because you are using internet not from home - there is the danger that it is not possible to find you the very next day. It might be not nice, if the police awaits you in the lobby of your hotel - only because some spambot or cyber-worm “helps” you to find illegal sites.

3.) The lists of blocked sites are secret. If you are not using a german provider, you will never know if YOUR homepage, blog, commercial website, ect. is blocked.

4.) This is an infrastructure for censoring - and we all know, if its installed, it will be used and extended. Do anyone in the world wants to have the germany Nation to be uninformed, wrong informed, censored? - AGAIN. History shows - we can do this quite effective and with uncontrolable consequences.

sign the e-petition to show, that even foreigners don’t want Germany to be censored again.

1.) make an account on the petition portal of the german parliament:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=register

email (repeat email), password (repeat password)

And then your name and adress:
Frau/Mann = Mrs./Mr.
Name = sirname
Vorname = first name
organisation = institution, company… (optional)
Titel = academic title if any (optional)
Straße und Hausnummer = street and house number
Postleitzahl = postual code/zip code
Wohnort = place of residence/city
Land = country
Bundesland = federal state of germany/foreign countries - choose the last one (AUSLAND) if you are not living in germany
Telefonnummer = telefon-number (optional)

then activate option “Ich bin einverstanden” - which says, you are ok with the privacy-policy of the portal.

At last prove, not to be a bot with:
“Visuelle Verifizierung” - type in the letters you see in the picture on the bottom of the site,